The invention relates to a process and plant for manufacturing a sausage or salami type food product and the food product thus obtained.
Today a number of different sausages and salamis are known (such as steamed and/or smoked cooking sausages, roasting sausages, sausages for spreading, raw sausages, dried or semi-dried sausages, cooked salamis, dried salamis etc., with or without casing). The said sausages may be any one of the following shapes: rectilinear, curved: annular or horse shoe or hairpin shaped, the two ends of the sausage which are set apart from one another to a greater or lesser degree being interconnected by means of two staples or end or closing connections of the sausage associated together directly or indirectly by means of an additional connection (Swiss Pat. No. 538811). They can also be an open ring (U.S. Pat. No. 3,180,737), round, oval, elliptical disc shaped or flat or rectangular parallelepiped (German Pat. No. 2406090 and French Pat. No. 2379985). These sausages are manufactured according to either one of the following processes: by being stuffed into a tube the front end of which has been sealed previously and the rear end of which is sealed after filling the tubular envelope with the edible contents (Swiss Pat. No. 538811, French Pat. No. 2214635, German Pat. No. 2937761): shaping is provided by a mould which corresponds to the required shape of the end product (French Pat. No. 2379985 and German Pat. No. 2406090).
There are also a number of different modifications of filler casing or tubular envelope with regard to type (natural or synthetic), their manufacturing process, properties (e.g. their adhesive power) and, finally, their shape. More particularly, a process is known which provides the thermoplastic resin casing with a curved shape (French Pat. No. 2343576).
Methods for storing delicatessen (such as black pudding or saucisse de Toulouse) are known which consist in being rolled into a spiral, possibly on a conical prong provided for this purpose (German Pat. No. 2937761).
U.S. Pat. No. 3,180,737 discloses a sausage cooked in its skin in the shape of an open ring. The raw meat emulsion is firstly stuffed inside an elongate tubular envelope, then the envelope, which is coated with the meat emulsion and which is deformable, is wound into a spiral on a prong, the meat is then heated and cooked until the sausage retains its helicoidal shape. The prong is then removed and the sausage is cut longitudinally along the prong in order to separate each turn of the spiral. The envelope in which the sausage is cooked is removed to leave a skinless sausage.
German Pat. No. 2406090 discloses a flat cooking sausage which is in the shape of an elliptical disc, surrounded by a skin. The sausage meat is then moulded, pressed and shaped in a disc-shaped mould then heated, being skinless up to that moment. The skin, which is made from a coagulable substance such as sodium alginate, is applied to the sausage meat by pulverisation or immersion.
French Pat. No. 2379985 discloses a delicatessen product in the shape of a round or oval disc or a flat or rectangular parallelepiped. A sheet of the cellophane envelope is placed at the bottom of a mould, then sausage paste is pressed into the mould and the envelope is closed about the paste. The pre-moulded paste is disposed on a tray, steamed and then dried. The original envelope, which because of its type does not stick to the edible contents, is then removed. The paste, thus steamed, is then dried and the envelope removed in a vat of edible gelatine, and then preferably covered with spices. The object of this patent, therefore, is to manufacture a salami type product which differs completely from the traditional shape.